Hi, my name is Bob

I'll never forget the first recovery group I attended at the counseling center where I worked.  It felt like church, the kind of church where people could be honest without being condemned and forgiven rather than judged.  The kind of church where people understood your problems and wanted to participate in your recovery.

I've gone to church from the time I was a child, but not that kind of church.  More often than not, I've gone to a "let's pretend everything is okay" kind of church.  Even though things are never completely okay, we put on our Sunday shoes, cloths, manors and smiles so others won't be shocked by the way things really are. This sounds dishonest, but we're just trying to look religious.

Phillip Yancey shares a similar experience in an article entitled The Midnight Church.  He wrote:

I attended a unique "church" recently, one that exists without a denominational headquarters or paid staff and yet attracts millions of committed members. Its name is Alcoholics Anonymous. A friend had invited me during a poignant conversation in which he confessed his problem to me. I'd like you to come with me," he said, "and I think you'll get a glimpse of what the early church must have been like." When I pressed him for details, he simply smiled and said, "Come, You'll see." 

At 12 o'clock on a Monday night I entered a ramshackle house that had been used for six other sessions already that day. Acrid clouds of cigarette smoke hung like tear gas in the air. I soon sensed what my friend had meant in comparing A.A. to the early church: a well-known politician and several millionaires were mixing freely with unemployed dropouts and dazed-looking-kids who wore Band Aids to cover needle marks on their arms. The group conveyed obvious warmth, and conversations tended to be intimate and intense: alcoholics can expertly cut through a facade of polite aloofness or feigned strength.

When we went around and introduced ourselves, it went like this: "Hi, I'm Tom, and I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict." Instantly everyone shouted in unison, like a Greek chorus, "Hi, Tom!" Then Tom, and each person there, shared a personal progress report on his battle with addiction. For many, these fellow members are the only people in the world who treat them with care and respect, and even a ritual can have profound meaning.

The A.A. gathering has helped Yancey's friend to deal with his addiction and deepen his faith. 

"None of us can make it on our own - isn't that why Jesus came?" he explained. "Yet most church people give off a self-satisfied air of piety or superiority. I don't sense them consciously leaning on God or each other. An alcoholic who goes to church feels inferior and incomplete."

He sat in silence for a while; then a smile began to crease his face. "It's a funny thing," he said at last.-"What I hate most about myself, my alcoholism, was the one thing God used to bring me back to him. Because of it, I know I can't survive without him. Maybe God is calling us alcoholics to teach the saints what it means to be dependent on him and his community on earth."

Wouldn't it be great to be part of a church where you don't need to pretend that everything is okay because we are learning to depend on God and his community on earth.  You can read Phillip Yancey's full article HEAR.